


A Handsome Boatman

by Anonymous



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Explicit Language, Fucked Up, Gen, Harassment, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Introspection, M/M, Obsession, Prison, Stalking, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, early season six
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Seamus post safe house. Every ending is a new beginning.
Relationships: Kevin Cozner & Seamus Murphy, Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt, Seamus Murphy/Kevin Cozner
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31
Collections: anonymous





	A Handsome Boatman

After the trial it’s all silence in his head, louder than the clang of a baton against iron bars, louder than the gates when they’re buzzed open or slammed shut, louder than the crunch of bone on concrete. 

The black kid screams and Seamus slams him against the wall, facefirst, again and then again, despite the COs trying to pry him off. 

The fuck you doin, huh? You don’t mess with me.

No point saying it; he’s said it. The message is smeared across the wall for everyone to read. 

Loud and clear.

***

Doctor Kevin M. Cozner, PhD. is fluent in nine languages, according to his wikipedia entry. He’s got one, so does his husband, Captain Raymond J. Holt, his mother-in-law, the honorable judge Laverne Holt, and his father, Thomas N. Cozner, who apparently was some famous professor of medicine. 

Seamus clicks through the links on the pages, wrinkling his nose.

Someone has written an entry for him as well. A pretty shitty one, linked to an article called “The Wilson-West Murders” in which he is named as prime suspect in the decades old cold case. He sneers, thinking about Jamie Wilson wetting his pants before he shot him. The look on his dumb face. Fucking priceless. 

There is no mention of him in Cozner’s article and none of Cozner in his.

As far as the world is concerned, there’s no connection between them.

***

Seamus is fluent in two languages. One is the words coming out of his mouth and the second one is the things people make him do to them. He knows how the game is played; he’s been playing it since he was six.

_Got my hands on a gun before I got ‘em on a pair of tits,_ his uncle used to say. Seamus never said it - he’s got more class than that - but he thinks it’s true for him too.

There’s an old Irish guy in the Metropolitan Correctional Facility who runs shit. He’s an O’Leary. Seamus’ old man used to run with them back in the day before he broke off to do his own thing - which soon became the main thing in town. Anyway, the O’Learys outside joined the Murphys back in ninety-nine, but this wrinkly old bastard’s world-view is still stuck somewhere in the seventies, so he thinks Seamus is going to kiss the ring. Which Seamus does and then the next day the senile fuck chokes to death on his oatmeal. Fuckin’ tragic, but what can you do?

Prison game is meth which never really was Seamus’ thing but there’s no accounting for taste, right?

He calls Angie to tell her he expects to see her on visitation day and she better bring the boys. He doesn’t want them to go soft in his absence or to forget his face.

He doesn’t want them to turn into fuckin’ Kyles. 

Of course she whines and complains, talks about the bills - what bills? He’s paid them all, has kept her in high heels and shiny handbags for fuckin’ decades - then mentions that Kyle has written her an email.

An email? Fucking Kyle. Seamus’ hand clenches around the phone receiver, wishing it was Kyle’s throat. He thinks idly about ripping the whole thing out of the wall and choking the guy next to him to death with the chord, just to do something.

“Find out where he is,” he tells her and she snaps back, “Why? You gonna kill him? Your own nephew?”

“Shut up, they monitor these calls, you stupid cow, and why would I kill him, my little brother’s son? Are you fucking nuts?”

She snarls at him, the way she does, the way that used to get him so hot when they were nineteen and knew nothing. Still gets him hot actually, he realizes. Whatever.

He calls Nikki next and she cries a little on the phone, mostly for show he’s sure. After he’s hung up, he thinks about calling that hot piece Michelle from Nikki’s salon, but what would be the point? There’s no way he could get her in here.

There’s someone else he’d like to call, though. But not from this phone.

***

He thinks about him a lot, it’s true. There have been many men - and a few women - over the course of his life that tried to bring him down.They all failed. They all died.

Thing is, he fucking had Peralta and Holt. He fucking _had_ them. They were as good as dead. With those two out of the way, he would have made it south no problem. He would be in Mexico or Brazil right now, sipping cocktails by the pool.

_Better get some corticosteroids to treat that laryngeal fracture._ What the fuck was that even supposed to mean?

***

“Hey, is it true you were knocked out by a fag?” It’s one of the Cubans who asks, a ferrity, mean looking little cunt with beady eyes. He wants to earn points with his crew or has a death wish or maybe both. 

Seamus just smirks and thinks of his mom kissing his forehead every morning, whispering, “Be good today, my darling.” though they both knew it wasn’t an option. Sometimes she had a split lip and she’d wince a little when her wound touched his skin.

There’s an incident in the showers the next day, which is gonna have his Cuban friend walk funny for the foreseeable future - or maybe not walk at all for a while.

***

Seamus spends a couple of days in the hole afterwards, unrelated to the shower incident, just some little business dispute gone sour. He’s fine with it, the isolation, that just means none of the guys are in his ears, whining, complaining, posturing. It gives him room to think, to plot.

Only, his thoughts, they turn one way.

***

Kyle had flipped on him, that much’d been obvious when his guys returned empty-handed, and then, when the little snake had been put into police custody before Seamus could get to him, it’d been clear that Holt had his hands in it too. So Seamus owed Holt because unlike Holt, he was a man of his word.

Times like these, you wanted a family man. _How’s the missus? She still pick up little Billy from soccer practise every Tuesday at six? And I guess Annie’s in second grade now, huh? They grow up so fast, right?_

Holt had no kids, no wife. For a moment, Seamus had contemplated going for the aging mother, but then, well, Holt did have a husband. Wasn’t the same though, Seamus felt, threatening a man. Some fifty-something college professor. They’d been married for about a decade, had been one of the first couples down at city hall when gay marriage had been legalized. Seamus remembers looking at a picture of Cozner online and wondering whether Holt loved this guy. 

What that even was, one old guy loving another. Did they still fuck? The thought makes his skin crawl with revulsion. 

Lying on the paper-thin mattress on the single bunk in the hole, Seamus closes his eyes. What might Cozner be doing right now? For all Seamus knows, he’s sucking Holt’s cock. Cozner’s such a thin-lipped cunt, it must be like rubbing your dick into a crack between floorboards.

***

Nineteen days into his prison sentence Seamus has as many cellphones as he has COs on his payroll: three. Plus the certainty that he can get more whenever he needs them.

He’s back in his cell, in his bunk - the top one, obviously - while his cellmate is outside standing guard. 

He digs one of the phones out of its hiding place inside his pillow and taps in the number he’s memorized from the Columbia University webpage. After four rings the phone is picked up and there is his voice - _Better get some corticosteroids_ \- but less cocky, now bland and professional.

“Columbia University, Classics Department, Dr. Kevin Cozner speaking.”

Seamus’ upper lip curls into a sneer. He’s feeling the old rush, the same one he felt when he saw Holt’s eyes go wide at the diner. _Tell your husband Kevin I’ll see him real soon._ The look on Holt’s face had said it all. He’d known then he’d made the right choice. He’d found the captain’s weak spot.

“Kevin, how’ve you been?”

There is a pause as Kevin tries to place his voice. “I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Aw, well, I guess we’ve never really talked before,” Seamus drawls, gleeful. He knows he’s enjoying this too much. Somewhere outside the cell, there’s shouting, someone’s being put in his place. “It’s Seamus.”

Another pause. Seamus listens for the gasp, the surprised intake of breath. If there is one, he misses it.

When Kevin’s reply comes, it is preternaturally calm and firm. “You must know that I will report this, Mister Murphy, and I don’t think that will be to your benefit.”

“Sure.” Seamus sinks into his lumpy pillow. He pictures Cozner’s thin lips pressed together. That knife-slash of a mouth. His throat would have gaped under Seamus’ blade, spewing a flood of hot blood. Ah, what might have been. “I just wanted you to know that I’m thinking of you, Kevin. I won’t forget what I owe you.”

Kevin hangs up without a word.

For the pure joy of it, Seamus hits redial. It rings once, then the connection is cut.

When he hits redial again, the line is busy.

***

The same night, they toss his cell. They don’t find anything, of course. Still, he has to go up to the warden’s office, listen to the old bastard blather on about consequences.

***

It’s a couple more days in the hole. Seamus could not care less. Business is booming. People in prison want to get high. They can’t get out, so it’s the next best thing. 

Nevermind that he can’t get out either. 

Nevermind that this is it. 

His fingers itch to call Kevin again.

***

He rations them out, his next few calls. 

Some in the mornings, some in the afternoons. Sometimes days between them, sometimes weeks.

Always to Cozner’s office, never to their home. He’s not interested in talking to Holt. He wants Kevin. 

“I’ll have you know that I am recording this call,” Cozner says.

“Be my guest,” chuckles Seamus. He doesn’t care. They’ll slap him on the wrist, what else can they do? 

“Have you told your husband yet?” he asks. There is no reply. “I have always wondered, is he a catcher or a pitcher?”

“He does not play baseball,” Kevin replies and hangs up.

***

“You know, I shouldn’t have warned him,” Seamus says in lieu of a greeting. “That was my mistake. It’s just that I love to give them a fighting chance. Fairer that way. Next time I’ll just send him your head in a box.”

“There will not be a next time.” No waver in his voice. Seamus wants to shake him.

He grits his teeth and breathes in. He hears the buzz of the gate and the distant laughter of the COs.

“You keep telling yourself that, Kevin,” he whispers into the phone, imagining his lips grazing the shell of his ear.

The line goes dead.

***

_Founding member of the International Nicholas Cage Fanclub._ The phrase appears in Cozner’s wikipedia entry, only to be removed again. A click on article history reveals that it was added by someone using the screen name funky_statcat. The same person removed the edit eleven minutes later. 

For a few moments Seamus is tempted to edit the article himself. He considers adding a date of death, but then thinks better of it. He wants this to stay between him and Cozner. 

***

For his birthday, Seamus sends Kevin thirteen red roses to his office. He imagines the smile on those bloodless lips. He imagines Kevin reaching out to gently pinch a delicate petal between thumb and index finger. He imagines him leaning into the bouquet to smell the flowers, believing them to be from his husband, a romantic gesture.

And then he’ll find the note.

_ Sweetheart, one day I’ll come for you. _

_ -Seamus _

***

They put him into solitary for two weeks, which is about as long as they can. And Seamus can’t lie, he goes a little nuts because time does not exist in there, except for the ticking of the old grandfather clock they used to have in their living room when he was little. He hears that and the voice of his mother begging him to be good. 

Too late to be good though.

He thinks about Cozner, who maybe has gone to Holt now, which would explain the sudden harshness of his punishment, but that would also mean that he did not go to Holt before. And that makes him laugh, the thought of his professor hiding this like an affair.

_Oh, Kevin,_ he wants to tell him, _I do want to fuck you. Not in a gay way, just to hurt you and to make you scream._ He wonders if Holt makes him scream. Probably not.

***

“Was it worth it?” asks Malcom.

“What is your deal with that professor?” asks Rob.

“Why not just have him taken care of?” asks Liam.

***

“Did you like my gift?” asks Seamus on the phone, wishing he could call Cozner at night. But he can’t. Office hours.

“No, I did not,” Kevin says archly. “I want you to stop.”

It’s the first time he’s said it and Seamus is surprised, also pissed, because what? Cozner thinks that’s all it takes? A firm _I want you to stop._ Like he needs the professor’s permission, like it’s that easy. 

He’d gone in unarmed. He’d driven the car through the wall and then he’d run at Seamus un-fucking-armed. 

“I can’t do that because I owe you, you know that.” He tips his head back in his pillow, the phone warm against his ear. If it comes to that, he can do another two weeks in the hole and another and another. What does it matter?

“Aren’t you getting tired of this?” Cozner asks. He sounds exhausted, which is not what Seamus wants. He wants terror. A couple of calls ago he told Cozner about the poor fuck who was gangraped by nine guys, simply because it was something to do. He wants something like that to happen to Cozner. He wants to make it happen.

“No.” How could he get tired of this? He wants to pry Kevin’s ribcage open and rip out his heart.

“What if my husband were to divorce me?”

Now he really is surprised. Seamus huffs a laugh. So there’s trouble in paradise.

“This isn’t about him, Kevin. You know that.” He honestly doesn’t care about Holt anymore. He had Holt and Peralta. Until Kevin showed up. Everything Seamus built, Kevin destroyed with one lucky throat-punch. “I couldn’t care less if he dumps you for some twenty-year-old tomorrow. It doesn’t change anything. I owe _you_.”

Kevin is silent. Seamus feels he’s hit a nerve. Maybe there is a twenty-year-old. Good for Holt.

He looks up at the ceiling, at the spiderweb in the corner. No spider in sight. It’s hiding somewhere. When they’re bored, they flick flies into the web and watch.

Uncharacteristically, the professor hasn’t hung up yet; it’s almost like he wants to talk. Seamus is feeling out the vibrations in his web. He can hear Kevin breathe, soft and regular. “But if it weren’t for him, we never would have met. Now we have and this is gonna be forever, Kevin. Me calling you, telling you what I’m gonna do.” He pauses to listen to Kevin. Silence on the other end. The professor is all quiet and composed still. Seamus imagines the unhappy line of his mouth, his jaw set. “Until that day,” he promises. “The day I repay my debt.” It’s a little dramatic, but Seamus has always liked the drama. It’s why he showed up at the diner, it’s probably why they got him in the end. “You still think it was worth it?” he asks. “Saving your fat, ungrateful husband?”

A moment passes. Seamus grins.

“Yes, I _love_ him,” Kevin says finally and hangs up.

***

Seamus gets sent to solitary. Afterwards, there is silence on the phone. When he calls, Kevin will neither listen nor speak. He ends the call before Seamus has finished his first word and blocks the number immediately, so Seamus has to change SIM cards if he wants to call again. Not a huge problem, but kind of a pain in the ass.

Easier then to go old-fashioned. He mails Kevin a postcard that reads, _Thinking of you, always. -S._

He wonders if Holt has run off with the twenty-year-old yet.  


***

There are ways Seamus imagines this story will end. He pictures them every night he lays down in his bunk to sleep. His hand around Cozner’s throat, Kevin’s pulse racing under his fingertips. Those blue eyes go wide, almost popping from their sockets, and finally, finally Seamus gets to feel his terror. The sweating, the shaking, the begging, the tears. He wants it. He knows he wants it too much now.  


There are nights when his hand slides under the elastic waistband of his boxers. It’s not like he has many pleasures in prison.

The truth is, he doesn’t even really imagine this story ever ending. Doesn't want it to be over.  


Instead, he thinks about what he’ll get Kevin for Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a Kevin side to this story. Maybe I'll write it.


End file.
